{"id":2416,"date":"2011-08-25T19:59:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T19:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=2416"},"modified":"2013-03-19T20:04:20","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T20:04:20","slug":"a-lovely-little-nato-intervention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-lovely-little-nato-intervention\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lovely Little NATO Intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n

FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n

World powers sometimes have to fight wars not for some material interest, but for bolstering a nation\u2019s prestige in order to deter more dangerous aggressors. As Margaret Thatcher said after England\u2019s defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War, the conflict showed that \u201cnow once again Britain is not prepared to be pushed around\u201d and that Britain has \u201cceased to be a nation in retreat.\u201d So too with Reagan\u2019s 1983 invasion of Grenada, which was as much about showing the Soviet Union that Carter-era retreat and appeasement were over, as it was about rescuing 800 American students and forestalling a Soviet-Cuban military airbase in our geopolitical backyard.<\/p>\n

The European-instigated NATO involvement in the Libyan civil war was no doubt seen as just such a prestige-building exercise. The EU nations were in need of some action that could show they were, as Jacques Chirac said in 1995, an \u201cessential pole\u201d in the \u201cmultipolar world\u201d created by the end of the Cold War. In the 1990s that boast had been exposed as hollow after the horrors in the Balkans \u2014 ethnic cleansing, massacres of civilians, torture and mutilation of prisoners in concentration camps \u2014 were stopped not by the Europeans and the UN, but by an American bombing campaign conducted under the patina of NATO authority. The subsequent wars against jihadist terror likewise have been American affairs, undertaken against the advice, wishes, and obstructions of major powers like France and Germany. The whole edifice of EU \u201cpostmodern\u201d foreign policy, predicated on the \u201csoft power\u201d of diplomacy and international law, is nothing but an exercise in bad faith if American soldiers and cruise-missiles have to be called on to punish aggressors.<\/p>\n

The civil war in nearby Libya, with its mostly flat terrain and Mediterranean coastline, seemed like a lovely little prestige-building intervention for the Europeans. The patent sadistic lunacy of Gaddafi, evident in his bluster about exterminating the \u201crats\u201d in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, added a moral imperative to the logistical conveniences. And an American president eager to \u201clead from behind\u201d and allow the Europeans to do most of the bombing on America\u2019s nickel, all in the name of \u201cmultilateralism,\u201d thrust into the shadows the perennial unpleasant fact that NATO is institutional camouflage for American military power, an organization necessary for those military-scrimping nations that NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson once called \u201cmilitary pygmies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet despite the downfall of Gaddafi\u2019s regime, the Libyan adventure is unlikely to fool anybody into respecting Europe\u2019s geopolitical clout. Too many unpleasant contradictions and unanswered questions still hang around the campaign. Everyone knows that American cruise missiles and intelligence were critical to the campaign. Rules of engagement designed for political rather than military efficacy, an unwillingness to risk ground troops, Obama\u2019s disappearance, and squabbling between NATO states unnecessarily prolonged the conflict to the detriment of those nations\u2019 prestige. It is unlikely that any aggressor is going to be deterred by a coalition which, enjoying superiority in the air and armed with high-tech weaponry, took several months and 20,000 sorties to defeat a glorified gangster like Gaddafi. As\u00a0Stanley Kurtz<\/a>\u00a0points out, \u201cIf this is what it takes for America and its allies to dislodge an unpopular dictator in open terrain, our more dangerous potential adversaries cannot be feeling much fear right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, the odor of bad faith hangs over the whole enterprise. The pretext for intervention was to prevent \u201cgenocide,\u201d yet the real reason, obvious as the conflict wore on, was to remove Gaddafi from power. We heard the pleasing \u201cArab Spring\u201d rhetoric about supporting \u201cfreedom and democracy,\u201d yet we have no clue about whom we have put in power. Are they liberal democrats or Islamists? Who knows? We do know that the National Transitional Council\u2019sDraft Constitutional Charter<\/a>\u00a0says, \u201cIslam is the religion of the state, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia),\u201d a statement that negates all the subsequent protestations of respect for human rights. We do know that all the jihadist outfits have been supporting the rebels, and are pleased at Gaddafi\u2019s removal. We do know that tons of weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, assault rifles, machine guns, mines, grenades, antitank missiles, and rocket-propelled grenades, are now floating around north Africa, many no doubt destined for jihadist factions. We know that eastern Libya, ground zero of the rebellion, has sent thousands of terrorists to Afghanistan and Iraq, where they have learned valuable terrorist skills. We know that Libya is still riven with ethnic, sectarian, and tribal conflicts, all worsened by the recent war and the inevitable avenging violence to follow, and all to be financed by revenues from the export of 1.3 million barrels of oil a day. Given these realities, it is delusional to think a stable liberal democracy favorable to Western interests is going to arise on the ashes of the Gaddafi regime.<\/p>\n

Finally, the pretext that NATO power intervened on the lofty principle of preventing genocide is repudiated by the ongoing nearby slaughter of Syrians by Bashar al-Assad, who is actually carrying out what Gaddafi flamboyantly promised, undeterred by Western condemnations and sanctions. The only consistent principle that arises from the Libyan campaign is that logistical convenience and political cost trump concerns for human rights and suffering, the same calculation that allowed the West to stand by as millions were slaughtered in Rwanda and Darfur. National interest is still the ultimate determiner of foreign policy, and it\u2019s hard to see what interests of ours were served by participating in this war.<\/p>\n

Rather than building European NATO\u2019s geopolitical prestige, the Libyan intervention has reinforced its hypocrisy and weakness, in addition to exposing the NATO nations\u2019 willingness to put into power an unknown regime just to gain some moral prestige on the cheap. As for the US, a president who thinks a guilty America should cede authority to a bumbling transnational organization and flabby international law has implicated our country in the same hypocrisy and weakness.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92011 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine World powers sometimes have to fight wars not for some material interest, but for bolstering a nation\u2019s prestige in order to deter more dangerous aggressors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,154],"tags":[119,249,1045,115,1055,173,1049,673,1047,494,1056,1030],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-CY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5811,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/margaret-thatcher-and-the-death-of-feminism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2416,"position":0},"title":"Margaret Thatcher and the Death of Feminism","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage\u00a0 The death of Margaret Thatcher will no doubt generate much deserved recognition and discussion of her historical significance. She was, after all, the most consequential British Prime Minister in the post-war period, eclipsed only by Winston Churchill as the greatest British leader of the 20th\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Women"","block_context":{"text":"Women","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/women\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10360,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lord-ismay-nato-and-the-old-new-world-order\/","url_meta":{"origin":2416,"position":1},"title":"Lord Ismay, NATO, and the Old-New World Order","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 What has become of the prescient post-WWII dictum \u2018Russians out, Americans in, Germans down\u2019? \u00a0 The accomplished and insightful British general Hasting Ismay is remembered today largely because of his famous assessment of NATO, offered when he was the alliance\u2019s first secretary general.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "EU"","block_context":{"text":"EU","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/eu\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8011,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-nato-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2416,"position":2},"title":"The End of NATO","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas Declaring the North Atlantic Treaty Organization dead has been a pastime of analysts since the end of the Cold War. The alliance, today 28-members strong, has survived 65 years because its glaring contradictions were often overlooked, given the dangers of an expansionist and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Defining Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Defining Ideas","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/defining-ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1797,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/no-allies-but-plenty-of-enemies\/","url_meta":{"origin":2416,"position":3},"title":"No Allies–But Plenty of Enemies","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Almost 30 years after losing a war over the Falkland Islands, Argentina is once again warning Britain that it still wants back what it calls the Malvinas. Argentina is now angry over a British company's oil exploration off the windswept islands in what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2010"","block_context":{"text":"March 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/march-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11298,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/07-27-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":2416,"position":4},"title":"07-27-18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Your article\u2026about NATOs challenge is Germany, not America. Sir, With all respect but before you write any article you should learn about history. Germany did not start both World Wars. You might want to do some research before writing anything. Very sad how little people here\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3447,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/of-hawks-and-flies\/","url_meta":{"origin":2416,"position":5},"title":"Of Hawks and Flies","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The international order \u2014 comprising the United Nations, interstate diplomacy, organizations like NATO, and all the other transnational institutions that are supposed to keep the global peace and deter aggression \u2014 reminds me of the Spanish proverb about laws: they catch flies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2418,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}